Fry Monica Lewinsky!

Tough times call for tough laws. A brave Slate reader (or readers), writing under the banner of “Married Women in Support of the President,” suggests that the answer to Flytrap may be legislation, not impeachment.

“I propose that a new law be passed by Congress making any attempt to seduce the president an act of treason and a crime against the state. (All attempts will be reported by the Secret Service agents who guard him, by his secretary, etc.) This will protect the male (or female) president from attacks on his virtue and will protect the country from political debacles such as this one. I hope this proposal is taken seriously and discussed by legislators. It’s certainly more productive–and original–than the endless debates about what constitutes perjury and what constitutes sex.”

What a helpful idea! Since all the president’s staffers and Secret Service agents–not to mention the armed forces at his command–have proved unable to protect the nation’s leader from the wiles of women (and Chatterbox knows how wily they can be!), let us evoke the deterrent power of the law. Chatterbox joyfully anticipates the first trial for such an act of lèse majesté. Who shall we find in the docket, at risk of life or limb? Perhaps an airline stewardess or volunteer campaign worker who failed to rebuff a presidential grope with sufficient rigor? A starlet or aging movie star who cast an untoward glance the president’s way? And when the miscreant has been found guilty, and sentenced to death (surely treason calls for application of the capital punishment recently revived under federal law), why not a public execution as an example to doxies and Delilahs everywhere? The prospect is delightful–though not, perhaps, to the president.